Horses could soon be slaughtered for meat in US

[Down1]

Yummy !
And less costly too I would guess.

Horses could soon be butchered in the U.S. for human consumption after Congress quietly lifted a 5-year-old ban on funding horse meat inspections, and activists say slaughterhouses could be up and running in as little as a month.Slaughter opponents pushed a measure cutting off funding for horse meat inspections through Congress in 2006 after other efforts to pass outright bans on horse slaughter failed in previous years. Congress lifted the ban in a spending bill President Obama signed into law Nov. 18 to keep the government afloat until mid-December.

http://news.yahoo.com/horses-could-soon-slaughtered-meat-us-080907323.html

[Tumbleweed]

I hope they do get slaughter houses going again in the US. There are a lot of horses that need to be put down and it's a hell of a lot more humane in the US than if they cross the border into Mexico. There are to many horses that get old, crippled or are too dangerous to be around and they need to go to slaughter. It there isn't somewhere to send them alot of them end up suffering with their ailments or starving. There are alot of unwanted horses in this country.

I have horses that have earned their keep over the years and they will die here at home but horses that I don't have a connection to or haven't earned their keep would go to slaughter. I want the handling, transport and conditoins at the packing houses to be humane. I'm a horse lover.

[Neuro]

In Sweden people eat horsemeat salted and/or smoked, thinly sliced on bread. It is good!

[Dogman]

I hope they do get slaughter houses going again in the US. There are a lot of horses that need to be put down and it's a hell of a lot more humane in the US than if they cross the border into Mexico. There are to many horses that get old, crippled or are too dangerous to be around and they need to go to slaughter. It there isn't somewhere to send them alot of them end up suffering with their ailments or starving. There are alot of unwanted horses in this country.

I have horses that have earned their keep over the years and they will die here at home but horses that I don't have a connection to or haven't earned their keep would go to slaughter. I want the handling, transport and conditions at the packing houses to be humane. I'm a horse lover.

I agree, the land can only support just so many animals, and populations need to be controlled. There are only so many homes to go around to give homes to them. Here more and more horses are being starved or abandoned because the owners can not keep proper care of them.

It is a sad fact, I love the critters, but also understand you can only do so much for an overpopulation. And with the weather the way it is and more severe drought is more likely in the coming years, the herds need to be culled.

Not sure if I could eat horse meat myself, know pet food uses it.

As long as they do not go crazy killing off all of the wild horses in sight, and maintain healthy sustainable herds, that individuals can not be adopted out to a good home for work or pleasure.

Go for it!

[Tumbleweed]

Dogman the "wild" horses are just horses that got loose or were turned loose on public land. The problem with them is the same as domestic horses in more populated areas. The older ones are to old or wild to be safely trained or be around and I speak from experiance on that. The younger ones may be useful if someone wants to make the effort. The problem is there are to many domestic horses that no one wants. The wild ones when they get to numerous destroy the habitat where they are just like the domesticated ones. The population needs to be controled. A few wild horses are ok but for the most part I think there are to many and people who don't know anything about horses are making decisions without real knowledge about the horses or the inviroment.

[Dogman]

Dogman the "wild" horses are just horses that got loose or were turned loose on public land. The problem with them is the same as domestic horses in more populated areas. The older ones are to old or wild to be safely trained or be around and I speak from experiance on that. The younger ones may be useful if someone wants to make the effort. The problem is there are to many domestic horses that no one wants. The wild ones when they get to numerous destroy the habitat where they are just like the domesticated ones. The population needs to be controlled. A few wild horses are ok but for the most part I think there are to many and people who don't know anything about horses are making decisions without real knowledge about the horses or the environment.

I fully agree, but sometimes wonder if the mustangs the Spanish left behind, still have any bloodlines that have not been diluted completely out ?

Yes , bunch of save the ______ (fill in the blank) types, do not have a clue about the reality of the land and what it can and can not support.

Peace!

[gunDriller]

as i discovered when butchering a deer - most of the meat is in the legs.

all that work skinning it, removing the guts - didn't net any extra meat.

i could have just cut the legs off.


when i look at a horse - look at those legs ! MASSIVE cuts of meat.


at the same time - i think every animal that becomes our food deserves a humane death - to die without pain or panic. easier said than done.

[seaurchin1]

As the economy worsens, more and more horses will be abandoned or neglected. If people cannot afford to pay
for a vet to euthanize their old, lame or dangerous horses, or if they don't have the money to feed them, what are they going to do?
Properly run slaughterhouses are a neccesary option. Also, imo, it makes more sense to use the meat afterwards, than have a 1400lb, drug contaminated
carcass rotting in the ground. I have had horses euthanized by vets and buried, and some I donated to a wildlife rescue. They would come out to the farm,
and after a well-placed bullet and no stress or suffering, they would go to feed rescued birds of prey, etc. Knowing that others would benefit from
a friends passing, made things a little easier.

[goldleaf]

This is good news! For 20 some years I hauled horses to just about every horse plant in the country, Dekalb, Ill.,
Walterboro,S.C., Morton, Palestine, and Fort Worth, Tex., Lynchburg, Va., Plainfield, Ct. and North Platte, Neb., and Blaine, Minn. The only other plant,that I never went to, that I'm aware of in the states was in Redmond,Ore. and I
think some animal rights terrorists burnt it down. It was an affiliate of the plant in Dekalb, Ill. Most of the meat was
shipped to either Belgium or France and sold for more money than beef. I was able to get a loin from one of the plants once and cooked it up for a superbowl party. Everyone that tried it as impressed, and yes I told them what it was before they ate it. One thing that people don't realize, is that a slaughter market for horses keeps the prices up for all horses.

[horseshoe3]

I agree with everything Tumbleweed has said in htis post and would like to add one other point. The quality of horses has dropped dramatically due to the slaughter ban. It used to be that a guy could breed his mares and keep the best for replacement breeders and personal riders and sell the rest on the open market. A lot of the medium quality horses would end up as a riding horse or a pet while the lowest quality would become dogfood. Since the ban, there is no outlet for low quality horses and that has collapsed the entire market. The $500 - $5000 horses used to be the vast majority of the market. Now that whole segment doesn't exist. Currently, a horse will either be worth tens of thousands, or it will cost you money to get rid of it. Nobody can afford to keep a breeding program going when not only does it not pay, it actually costs you money to get rid of a perfectly good (if not ideal) animal.

[Twisted Titan]

So taking Boxer to the Glue plant was the right thing after all?